With no ballots to hand-count, a smooth Fairhaven election

FAIRHAVEN — Following April's election bungle, Town Clerk Eileen Lowney said Monday's Board of Health re-do went off without a hitch.

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By ARIEL WITTENBERG

southcoasttoday.com

By ARIEL WITTENBERG

Posted Sep. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 11, 2013 at 5:41 AM

By ARIEL WITTENBERG

Posted Sep. 11, 2013 at 12:01 AM
Updated Sep 11, 2013 at 5:41 AM

» Social News

FAIRHAVEN — Following April's election bungle, Town Clerk Eileen Lowney said Monday's Board of Health re-do went off without a hitch.

The April election was plagued by a series of errors that included poll workers mixing up the write-in ballots with hand-count ballots — those that could not be read by the voting machines and were set aside to be counted later.

Other errors included four more ballots being counted than people who checked into and out of polls and Lowney erroneously swearing in one candidate — John Wethington — before all of the votes had been counted. When the votes were recounted, the other candidate (Peter DeTerra) was declared the winner.

The errors were described in June by Superior Court Judge Robert Kane, who invalidated the election results, as "shortcuts and abridgements" to election procedure "that amount to a public disgrace."

In Monday's election rematch, poll workers were instructed to count the hand-counted ballots and write-ins at precincts, and Lowney refrained from swearing in the victor until Tuesday, the day after the election.

"It's not a new system, it's something that should have been in place," Lowney said Tuesday. "It worked well. The poll workers did everything right."

As it turns out, there were no ballots to be hand-counted in the election, which simplified matters for town precinct workers after polls closed.

Lowney said there were only four write-ins, all of which were for fake candidates (including Bozo the Clown and Mickey Mouse), so the machine-count tallies were not affected.

Wethington, who lost to DeTerra by more than 500 votes, conceded the race Monday night after polls closed.

DeTerra was sworn in at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, bringing an end to what has been a six-month-long election season.